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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

I had an half an hour to spend around Pigs Eye Monday, and it was possibly the finest half-hour I've ever had railfanning. It started with a chase down the hill. There were 2 NS SD70ACes on the point of an EB Manifest:

I looked south to the yard and I could see a WB CSX fertilizer train getting ready to roll out with a triple header of CSX power.

As those two clear I see a BNSF manifest and an Earthworm holding to head East. As I admire them a BNSF Ore MT rolled up. That covered my Dash-9 fix as well as ES44DCs and SD70MACs.

The UP made there standard appearance, putting together a manifest to send down to Shakopee.

I headed over to the shops and looky-looky! More of the new CP GP30C ECOs!

And the pair of out of town guests that have eluded me all year! The Indiana Railroad SD9043MACs!

As I was getting ready to leave, I caught a CP transfer at the bluff with some great looking DME power on the point!

Shortly there-after the TCWR rolled through.

Not too shabby, eh? And people wonder why Minnesotans would put up with Sub-Zero temps half the year. The railfanning makes it worth it!

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Today is a quick structural update. I've decided to make a little progress on the Jasper Masonic Temple in Rush City. Why would I model a Masonic Temple you ask? Because it is there and it has a little history to it.

Photo from the MNHS Archives circa 1905.

According to the Minnesota Historical Society this was originally the Rush City Flour and Feed Company, which is good as the largest SCXY customer in Rush City is still the Horizon Mill (a large durum flour mill).

A photo I took late last year, you can see the Horizon Mill in the background.

I have gotten the majority of the major work done. The front is a resin kit I chopped up, the rest is scratch built using off the shelf styrene.

It gets test fit on the layout... most of the windows will be glass block and that will be coming from a supplier in Wisconsin.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

To start with, Happy New Year! I hope 2013 brings everyone a little more happiness!

In this first post of the year I thought I would give an update on a couple of projects. Last months not-so-mystery engine BN 7890 has rolled out of the shop. This was one of two Liquid Natural Gas engines BN experimented with. All it needs now are couplers, a front windshield wiper (ran out unexpectedly) and a decoder install. This was a fun project and I hope the new owner likes it.

The matching LNG tender will be coming too, I still have a little more work to do on that...

An engine I'm very happy with is my latest BNSF unit, BNSF GP38-2 #2050. This is the only Smurf on the BNSF roster that started life as a Clinchfield unit (CRR GP38 2007). I'll be using this engine at the SCXY-BNSF Hinckley interchange with one of my GP39Es until I build some GP28Ms. I still need to add the yellow MU cables, one mirror, front wipers and airhoses. This one will also be getting a sound decoder as I will be going that route with more of the engines. Sound adds so much.

This engine started as an Atlas CSX GP38, I extended the dynamic brakes and shortened the airbox. I'm a couple details short of done, but I thought it was close enough to show off.